Read Online One Night With the Billionaire (Men of the Zodiac) by Sarah Ballance - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sarah Ballance
Tags: Romance, Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Contemporary Fiction, Contemporary Women, Women's Fiction
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once been.
Which gave him an idea.
“There’s an opening gala,” he said.
“I heard.”
“You should be there.” A fresh start for both of them—he with his resort, and for her a return to the public eye…but on her terms. No mobs of paparazzi, and no one bringing up the scandal she wanted to forget—the guests he’d invited had manners. “Get with Aggie with your dress size, and I’ll bring in a few for you to try.” To her quizzical expression, he added, “It’s black tie.”
Black tie.
Fuck.
Too late, he realized his mistake. His guest list included everyone from A-list celebrities to US Senators and state governors and their wives. Every well-heeled eye in the place would be on the woman who, by her own account, had been the subject of a recent scandal. They’d have to be—a woman as gorgeous as Zoe wouldn’t go unnoticed under any circumstances, let alone in that crowd. Which only meant one thing.
If he’d ever had a chance of keeping his association with Zoe a secret from her father, he’d just shot it all to hell.
Chapter Seven
T he next morning, Zoe powered on her phone and waited for approximately eleven thousand notifications to come through, every one of which she intended to delete unread. She kept one eye on the dinging phone and the other on Ryder, who stood at the stove frying bacon and scrambling eggs for omelets.
“You cook ?”
“You think anyone ever cooked for me?”
“I just figured…by now…”
He shook his head, then walked over and handed her a cup of coffee. “Nah. Not my style. If having money made me too helpless to fix my own breakfast, I’d probably give it back. I’m my own man first. Man with money second.” He paused, his gaze skating over her. “Something wrong with your phone, or do you normally have that many notifications?”
She shifted uneasily, not willing to admit the ridiculous degree to which her father was involved in her life. Approximately ten thousand of the messages were probably from him. “My friends and business associates don’t know where I am.”
“I figured it would be your parents.”
Well, alrighty then. “I mentioned a vacation.”
“You like mushrooms? Spinach?”
“Yes.” He stunned her. How was this man single?
She wondered all the way through breakfast, then decided to cyber stalk him the minute he went out the door. She hadn’t brought her laptop, and there was no way she was using the tablet he’d given her for inventory, so her cell phone would have to do.
She learned pretty quickly that Ryder kept an astoundingly low profile for a man whose net worth reportedly touched ten figures. The first dozen or more search results for his name were all real estate transactions and business deals, most consisting of nothing more than standard legal notices. She scanned through a couple of pages that might be considered articles, all referencing real estate transactions, and learned nothing her contact hadn’t already told her. Apparently Ryder was far more rich than famous, for he’d garnered very little attention. That could also only mean he was well behaved—anything else would have been a field day for a reporter looking for a story to spin.
She sat back against the leather sofa and stared at Ryder’s bedroom door. Wanting. But sleeping with him would be crazy, and Zoe didn’t do crazy things.
She got up and rinsed her coffee cup. Ryder told her she didn’t need to rush over to the resort, but it wasn’t as if she had anything else to do. Other than…the Caribbean stretched endlessly beyond the white sand, its waters the same cerulean blue as Ryder’s eyes. In her short tenure on the island, she’d yet to walk out on the beach. For that matter, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on one, and never one as gorgeous as this.
She couldn’t think of a better way to kill some time, especially considering it kept her out of the line of fire of questions. She wasn’t concerned with her
Which gave him an idea.
“There’s an opening gala,” he said.
“I heard.”
“You should be there.” A fresh start for both of them—he with his resort, and for her a return to the public eye…but on her terms. No mobs of paparazzi, and no one bringing up the scandal she wanted to forget—the guests he’d invited had manners. “Get with Aggie with your dress size, and I’ll bring in a few for you to try.” To her quizzical expression, he added, “It’s black tie.”
Black tie.
Fuck.
Too late, he realized his mistake. His guest list included everyone from A-list celebrities to US Senators and state governors and their wives. Every well-heeled eye in the place would be on the woman who, by her own account, had been the subject of a recent scandal. They’d have to be—a woman as gorgeous as Zoe wouldn’t go unnoticed under any circumstances, let alone in that crowd. Which only meant one thing.
If he’d ever had a chance of keeping his association with Zoe a secret from her father, he’d just shot it all to hell.
Chapter Seven
T he next morning, Zoe powered on her phone and waited for approximately eleven thousand notifications to come through, every one of which she intended to delete unread. She kept one eye on the dinging phone and the other on Ryder, who stood at the stove frying bacon and scrambling eggs for omelets.
“You cook ?”
“You think anyone ever cooked for me?”
“I just figured…by now…”
He shook his head, then walked over and handed her a cup of coffee. “Nah. Not my style. If having money made me too helpless to fix my own breakfast, I’d probably give it back. I’m my own man first. Man with money second.” He paused, his gaze skating over her. “Something wrong with your phone, or do you normally have that many notifications?”
She shifted uneasily, not willing to admit the ridiculous degree to which her father was involved in her life. Approximately ten thousand of the messages were probably from him. “My friends and business associates don’t know where I am.”
“I figured it would be your parents.”
Well, alrighty then. “I mentioned a vacation.”
“You like mushrooms? Spinach?”
“Yes.” He stunned her. How was this man single?
She wondered all the way through breakfast, then decided to cyber stalk him the minute he went out the door. She hadn’t brought her laptop, and there was no way she was using the tablet he’d given her for inventory, so her cell phone would have to do.
She learned pretty quickly that Ryder kept an astoundingly low profile for a man whose net worth reportedly touched ten figures. The first dozen or more search results for his name were all real estate transactions and business deals, most consisting of nothing more than standard legal notices. She scanned through a couple of pages that might be considered articles, all referencing real estate transactions, and learned nothing her contact hadn’t already told her. Apparently Ryder was far more rich than famous, for he’d garnered very little attention. That could also only mean he was well behaved—anything else would have been a field day for a reporter looking for a story to spin.
She sat back against the leather sofa and stared at Ryder’s bedroom door. Wanting. But sleeping with him would be crazy, and Zoe didn’t do crazy things.
She got up and rinsed her coffee cup. Ryder told her she didn’t need to rush over to the resort, but it wasn’t as if she had anything else to do. Other than…the Caribbean stretched endlessly beyond the white sand, its waters the same cerulean blue as Ryder’s eyes. In her short tenure on the island, she’d yet to walk out on the beach. For that matter, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on one, and never one as gorgeous as this.
She couldn’t think of a better way to kill some time, especially considering it kept her out of the line of fire of questions. She wasn’t concerned with her
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